ATF seizing guns. Leaked email

[5GallonBucket]

liked to know @tvc s thoughts

[5GallonBucket]

 

[tvc184]

If I read federal law correctly (and it has be a while), ATF gets to determine some definitions.  This is a common practice in both state and federal law.

It is impossible to convene Congress to determine everything that is ever done on a day to day basis. A legislature certainly has the authority to make laws but in many cases they simply do not want to do so. If Texas Parks and Wildlife Repartment wants to change the limit on deer or ducks next year, should the governor call a special legislative session and have representatives in Congress determine how many duck should be killed? That would be ludicrous but there has to be a law in place that allows the setting of limits. So what both state and federal congresses do is delegate that authority to some agency. Examples would be that the Texas Department of Transportation has the authority to set speed limits, the county judge can order evacuations for an emergency and TPWD can set limits and seasons on fish and game animals.

So when it comes to federal firearm laws, I believe the United States Congress has allowed ATF to set definitions or if not a specific definition, a ruling on if something meets a definition.  It would be legal for Congress to pass along that authority and again it is done and common many times on the state and federal levels.

Within that authority however a court of appeals or the Congress that gave the authority, can overturn a decision of the agency.

I believe in this case the ATF has the authority to determine if something fits the definition of a machine gun. It appears as though they have made a decision that the forced reset trigger is a machine gun.  By definition of federal law, a machine gun is the actual weapon or at the parts that can convert a weapon into a machine gun. An example would be that if you have an auto sear to convert an AR15 to a full automatic, You can’t simply take it out of the weapon by popping a couple of pins and claiming you don’t have a machine gun as the police approach. The sear is the machine gun definition because that is what converts it.

So in this case it appears as though the FRT has been determined by the ATF to be a machine gun.  I believe that is within their authority. As the guy in the first post/video  states, there is a current case contesting that definition. Great, that is in what courts are allowed to do. The guy in the first video also claims that the ATF’s ruling violates their own definition. That is his opinion and if the court agrees, that will become the final ruling. But, he is just stating an opinion because apparently it is in the lawful appeals process. 

Whether someone likes or dislikes the ATF ruling, Congress has given ATF that authority. Under that authority I believe they can likely seize an item that is a felony at the moment. The only ways to legally stop that immediately in my opinion is an act of Congress (which simply will not happen),  the US Department of Justice issue an order to an agency under their authority, the ATF, to not act (which simply will not happen)  or a court stepping in and issuing a stay against enforcing that law/definition.

My opinion for now is that the ATF has the authority to do what some claim they are about to do. 

[tvc184]

And looking at the definition of a machine gun, I believe the ATF may be correct. I watched a video a few months ago about the trigger where a guy was claiming that the ATF was wrong but his explanation seemed to fit the definition of a machine gun. It would be like a guy telling you that water is wet and he gave you a glass of Kool-Aid and saying this is not wet.

The main point of that video was that the definition of a machine gun is firing more than one round with that single trigger pull. The guy then demonstrated using a weapon with that trigger and making it appear to fire on full auto. Then he defends the multiple rounds by saying it is not a single trigger pull.  He goes on to describe it by saying that to make the trigger function as designed, you have to pull the trigger one time and hold it against the frame to make it work. That sure seems to sound like a machine gun. The defense of the trigger is that the trigger and the recoil of the gun forces your finger forward and with your continued backward pressure, firing another round. It is basically the trigger version of a bump stock.

At least by this one guy’s video, he actually says something like you have to hold continuous pressure against the trigger. That would seem to fit the definition of one pull because the moment you take your finger slightly off of the trigger to allow it to reset, the automatic feature stops.

I am not against the machine guns, I think the ruling in Miller on the NFA Is an incorrect ruling which I believe was overturned by Heller and later McDonald in the Supreme Court. No one has either questioned those rulings as they relate to Miller or they have not been able to get such a case in court. In the Supreme Court case of Miller, I believe they ruled that taxing machine gun was not taxing a constitutional right because the owning of firearms was not an independent right but the right of a militia. Under Heller and McDonald in fairly recent rulings, the Supreme Court ruled that owning a firearm was an independent right and had nothing to do with a militia. Those two rulings which seem to overturn Miller in my opinion, which is what makes the current machine gun laws legal.

[Unwoke]